Lions Clubs International

Gift for Living - 'Lionheart' - where it all began...

It was back in 1996 that an intrepid band of Lions and helpers set out on 'Operation Lionheart' a massive convoy of lorries carrying 100,000 shoeboxes filled with necessities and some small luxuries to stricken communities in Croatia. And about this time 'Gift' came into existence.

Bringing children here...

Between the summers of 1995 and 1996 more than 40 critically ill children were evacuated from their shattered homeland in the former Yugoslavia for treatment here thanks to the support of the British and Irish Lions for Maternal & Childhealth Advocacy International, a charity devoted to helping the children of areas of conflict.

Sending medics there...

The charity progressed to sending sophisticated medical equipment - intensive care and high dependency beds for children - to hospitals in the ravaged former Yugoslavia, bringing in doctors for specialised paediatric training here, and sending out highly trained British and Irish doctors and nurses to work in hospitals and help the local medical professionals.

Building Bridges

It was in his year, 1996/97, that Belmin, just a few days old and a very sick baby, in desperate need of sophisticated surgery for a heart condition, was medi-vacced through the night with the aid of the Dutch and Italian military for surgery in Birmingham which set him up for a healthy life.

A Gift for Jasmin - Life...

A very sick little boy called Jasmin was brought at the turn of 1996/97 for treatment for tumours in his lungs and abdomen at the world famed Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool due to the partnership between the British and Irish Lions and Maternal & Childhealth Advocacy International.You came to help meThe year was 1999, and this small boy personified the work of 'Lions Clubs International - A Gift for Living' as the charity progressed into the Millennium. Peering hopefully through the bars of his cot, he was just one of the small human beings for whose future the Lions of the British Isles and Ireland had been striving.

The present - and the future

All these years on the British and Irish Lions, through their own charity, 'Lions Clubs International - a Gift for Living' can truthfully say that they have saved countless lives and brought health and hope not only to the small suffering children of conflict, but also to their families.